The Toronto International Film Festival has begun its annual series of program announcements that will eventually culminate in 250+ of the most anticipated films of the year screening in Canada's largest city this September.

The Toronto International Film Festival has begun its annual series of program announcements that will eventually culminate in 250+ of the most anticipated films of the year screening in Canada's largest city this September. The festival will open with Bill Condon's WikiLeaks take "The Fifth Estate" and close with Daniel Schechter's "Life of Crime," starring John Hawkes, Mos Def and Jennifer Aniston.

Among those announced are a slew of major Oscar hopefuls. John Wells' "August: Osage County," Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave," and Jason Reitman's "Labor Day" will all world premiere at the festival, bringing with them Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts ("August"), Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt ("12 Years") and Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet ("Labor Day"). All three have fall release dates pegged for awards consideration, with TIFF clearly being set up as a launching pad in that regard.

Other Oscar hopefuls making their way to TIFF include Ron Howard's "Rush," Jean-Marc Vallée's "Dallas Buyers Club," Justin Chadwick's "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom," Stephen Frears' "Philomena" and Alfonso Cuarón's "Gravity," which was already announced as the Venice Film Festival's opener before it heads to TIFF.

Beyond the aforementioned, there's also quite a few potential breakouts that aren't set for release just yet.

Homegrown filmmaker Atom Egoyan will debut his most high-profile film yet with "Devil's Knot," starring Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Mireille Enos and Dane DeHaan in the first narrative adaptation of the story of the West Memphis 3, in which three teenagers were wrongfully accused of killing three kids.

Richard Ayoade will follow up his TIFF premiere "Submarine" with "The
Double," a comedy centered on a man (Jesse Eisenberg) who is driven
insane by the appearance of his doppleganger.